"Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events," the short story that gives Kevin Moffett's collection its title is, on the surface, about a man and his father--both writers, one published and one not, with the shadow of one deceased woman hanging over them. They're looking to lessen their anxiety, like many of Moffett's other characters, whether they're newlyweds, wrestling with their unfamiliar new roles, in a car with an unbearable stench of dead animal, or an impoverished man facing a delicate choice regarding a swallowed tooth crown he cannot afford to replace. The anxiety and uncertainty of these stories are leavened with a wry, dry sense of humor that doesn't mock the characters' predicaments. The situations these characters find themselves in are serious, yet Moffett's understanding of their foibles and predicaments enable him to locate the figurative gold crown among the... other material.

This may sound like Moffett written a series of stories straight out of 1950s cinema, but his sense of humor more closely hews to a mix of world-weary sarcasm and the dark comedy of an emergency room crisis worker, finding the silver lining that will make it possible to get through another day. Not all of the stories in Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events end with this silver lining located, but readers for whom a well-written piece of fiction can serve to point the way will find what they are looking for in its pages. --Matthew Tiffany, counselor, writer for Condalmo

Pickpocket Nishimura has been hired by the dangerously violent Kizaki to commit a robbery--an investor, sitting on 80 million yen for which he hasn't paid taxes, possesses a packet of incriminating documents. After the robbery succeeds way too easily, Nishimura discovers that the old man they left bound and alive has been found murdered--and, far more than an investor, he's a politician.

The Thief is an inside look at a professional pickpocket's hazardous life, and Fuminori Nakamura serves it up fast and dirty. Nishimura, a hardened lost soul, hasn't shed all his humanity yet. When he sees that a kid shoplifting in the supermarket has been spotted by the store detective, he grabs the boy's stolen goods and buys them for him. The next morning, he finds the boy waiting outside his door. He teaches the boy how to steal without getting caught, and he becomes Nishimura's tagalong disciple.

The thrill in The Thief is not character but pace, and the pace never flags. Recaptured by Kizaki, Nishimura must steal three items--or die. Though it's too late to escape the consequences of a life of stealing, Nishamura tries to save the boy. Nakamura's unflinching portrait of syndicate ruthlessness may leave you wondering why exactly you've been conducted hurtling through this suspense piece only to be defeated by the irrational, merciless world of crime. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle

Russia's leadership, aided by the elite KGB unit Department S, is bent on pulling Ukraine back into the Russian empire. As their intelligence forces put plans into action that will undermine the stability of Ukraine, the private American intelligence company Cougar is watching. Unlike the U.S. government, Cougar doesn't believe Russia will back off now that its presidential choice has taken the election in Ukraine, and remains vigilant in its efforts to deflect Russian plans. Cougar's secret weapon is Russia's nightmare: Anna Resnikov, a defected KGB agent who now uses her knowledge and skills against former employers. Wanted by the Russian government, she continues to fight the evils of Russia's dark underside.

The Blind Spy is Alex Dryden's third novel featuring Anna Resnikov, but it astutely works as its own narrative; readers can easily pick up The Blind Spy whether they've read Dryden previously or not. Anna is a refreshing addition to the traditionally male-dominated role of spy. She's believably crafted, maintaining her femininity without emphasizing her physical appearance and simultaneously exhibiting strength and intelligence. 

Readers will likely notice the story's length, as Dryden's plot moves slower than the average thriller; the titular "blind spy" doesn't truly come into play until well into the second half. However, Dryden more than makes up for the slower pace with rich, distinct characters and timely subject matter. The time invested in reading The Blind Spy is definitely time well spent. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

Born in 1903, Alice Herz-Sommer is the oldest living Holocaust survivor--indeed, one of the oldest women in the world. She has lived through two World Wars, one concentration camp and the death of her son. Through all of this, or perhaps despite all of this, she remains a devoted pianist and an eternal optimist, believing wholly in the power of music and laughter to bring us through the most difficult of times.

With A Century of Wisdom, Caroline Stoessinger presents a catalogue of this amazing woman's philosophy, explaining Alice's banishment of the words "if only" from her vocabulary, her uncanny ability to turn disappointment into generosity and her vigilant guard against prejudice and hate within herself. Placed in the context of Alice's life experiences, from her time in Theresienstadt to her relocation to Israel, and eventually to England, these sentiments read like miniature lessons in how to be happy despite seemingly overwhelming odds. "Only when we are so very old do we realize the beauty of life," Alice muses; while this may be true, A Century of Wisdom could be seen as an attempt to impart this wisdom to those much younger than herself.

Despite the many sad stories in Alice's life, here is a message of hopefulness and happiness contained within her experiences. Alice has touched hundreds, if not thousands of lives with her music, her compassion and her character. With A Century of Wisdom, her words will continue to inspire readers for years to come. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Wild is a poignant, no-holds barred, kick-ass memoir that will grab you by the throat and shake you to your core. Cheryl Strayed is 22 when her mom dies, and for the next four years she's a mess: after her marriage breaks up, she sleeps around, has an abortion and becomes addicted to heroin. Near rock bottom, she sees a book at a checkout counter about the Pacific Crest Trail, a wilderness trail running from the Mexican border to Washington State. She buys the book, deciding that to save herself she must hike the trail, solo; this "was what I had to do," she says. "I had to change." 

In a motel room in Mojave, Calif., about to embark, she packs up and realizes she's never really hiked, never really carried a pack as heavy as a small car before. Nevertheless, she takes a shaky step into the hot light. The very first day, she's stabbed by a Joshua tree, then loses her bandages in a gust of wind while trying to open her first aid kit with bloodied hands. That evening, she pulls out one of the few books she has allowed herself to carry and reads an Adrienne Rich poem entitled "Power" over and over.

And so it goes, for 1,100 miles and three arduous months--through injuries, hunger, thirst, strangers met, kindnesses shown, ice and snow, some hilarity, much suffering, almost quitting and much learning. She thinks about the "old thread I'd lost, the new one I was spinning," everything that had broken her, and how to make herself "whole again," and in the end, found. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Reading Steinbeck in Vietnam is a fascinating, occasionally uncomfortable experience. In December 1965, Nobel laureate John Steinbeck, then 65, accepted an assignment from Harry F. Guggenheim to report on the war in Vietnam for Newsday. A friend of Lyndon Johnson, with one son already in Vietnam and another in basic training, Steinbeck was not an unbiased observer--and made no pretense that he was. He arrived in Vietnam a full-fledged supporter of the war. He hated war protestors even more than he hated the Viet Cong. He was fascinated by military hardware. He treated American soldiers as heroes.

His columns were controversial at the time they were published; nearly 50 years later, they are often shocking. Written with the force that characterizes all of Steinbeck's work, his Vietnam dispatches are a mixture of vitriolic attacks on war protestors, lyrical descriptions of the countryside, paeans to the American soldier and moments of stunning insight. What makes the columns more than a historical curiosity is Steinbeck's effort to understand the war on its own terms. That internal struggle, publicly shared in the pages of Newsday, is as powerful an evocation of the Vietnam experience as Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

Literary scholar Thomas E. Barden's editorial touch is light and clearly defined. His introduction and afterword place the letters in the context of Steinbeck's career, including his later doubts about the war. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

At a young age, Bernie Krause (Wild Soundscapes) became fascinated with the array of natural sounds filtering through the walls of his family's house. He grew up to become both a musician and a naturalist, making a career out of recording natural sounds since the late 1970s; he was one of the first naturalists to record entire natural soundscapes rather than individual species.

In The Great Animal Orchestra, Krause details his time recording "biophonies"--the collective sounds made by wildlife in environments ranging from the jaguar-haunted Amazon to a teeming coral reef or the bone-dry African savanna. Along the way, he expounds on his theory that human music has its origins in the symphony of the natural world. From the broken reeds that sighed in the wind and inspired the first flutes, to the birdcalls that may have given humankind the pentatonic scale, the world's wild places contain musical elements incredibly similar to those of human musical ensembles, with each species occupying its own niche of sound. Krause also demonstrates the extent of the damage environmental disasters (both natural and man-made) inflict on soundscapes, adding that finding a listening site free of human sound interference is growing increasingly challenging.

Join Krause as he catches the sound of snowflakes falling, the rumble of a glacier from inside a crevasse and "the languorous glissando-like choruses of the gibbons" in Borneo, and learn how to tune your ears to the rhythms of the wilderness that gave us music. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads

You may have heard of the butterfly effect, but readers and bird-lovers should look forward to becoming acquainted Julie Zickefoose's The Bluebird Effect. In her first chapter, the talented artist and naturalist (Letters from Eden) recalls the time when she and her husband saved a male bluebird from the grip of a hawk. Identifying the rescued bird by its drooping wing thereafter, Zickefoose was able to track it over the course of the next seven years. That single bluebird was ultimately responsible for 53 direct offspring--quite an impact on the natural world.

The Bluebird Effect is full of true-life bird stories such as this, as Zickefoose is often asked to help save injured or abandoned song birds. Each chapter in the book features a compelling tale about a particular species of bird, interspersed with an assortment of Zickefoose's black-and-white sketches and more accomplished watercolors. Birders will be impressed by Zickefoose's avian knowledge and recognizable style--in addition to her own books, she's also contributed to several birding guides--but all readers will appreciate her gift for both observation and expression when it comes to capturing the winged creatures on the page, either with words or with brushstrokes. Most will be hard-pressed to resist hanging a birdfeeder in close view after finishing this fine book. --Roni K. Devlin, owner of Literary Life Bookstore & More

Most of us fear dying, yet death is one event that none of us can avoid. Why is it so difficult to pass peacefully, in the manner we'd each prefer? It is exactly this concern that prompted Ira Byock to write The Best Care Possible. Dr. Byock is a practitioner of hospice and palliative medicine, a specialty focused on improving a patient's quality of life while he or she is ill. In this book, Dr. Byock uses his personal and professional experiences to clarify the issues that interfere with the care given to seriously sick and dying patients, to explain the role of the palliative medicine provider and to discuss the health care reforms he believes are necessary to improve the quality of life through to the end. (It's not just health care that needs to change, though; Dr. Byock also writes about how patients and their families can rethink their approach to dying.)

Dr. Byock's previous book, Dying Well, addressed end-of-life issues through the recollections of a series of patients. The Best Care Possible shows a similar talent for storytelling, with much of its knowledge imparted to the reader through compellingly reconstructed patient scenarios. The Best Care Possible should be read by patients, families and health care providers alike, as we might all learn from Dr. Byock's message: "The healthiest response to death is to love, honor, and celebrate life." --Roni K. Devlin, owner of Literary Life Bookstore & More

Mark Hyman's first book, Until It Hurts, dealt with our national obsession with youth sports and its negative consequences for our children. The Most Expensive Game in Town expands on that theme by following the money. His research includes interviews and discussions with parents and grandparents, coaches, corporate sponsors and entrepreneurs--all of them spending and making money from youth sports in the United States. His conclusion: money can have adverse effects on the kids that sports programs are supposed to benefit in the first place, even when many of the parties involved have only the best intentions.

Hyman's case studies include visits with parents who became unintended entrepreneurs because they saw a way to improve their kids' experience as well as parents disturbed by the costs of supporting their kids. He looks at the big business of marketing through children--such as youth tournament sponsorships--and the promises made that kids will have a heightened chances of playing college sports or landing an athletic scholarship.

It's difficult to grasp the size of the ill-defined youth sports industry, but Hyman makes it clear that the amounts involved are shocking. Finally, he examines the plight of kids in inner cities (and others affected by poverty) whose access to the obvious benefits of sport, participation and competition is limited. Hyman's arguments are well-researched yet very readable, bringing home an issue that is perhaps underexamined but of great importance to parents and concerned citizens. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pages of julia

This chilling and riveting debut novel explores how far the wealthy will go to live their lives as long as possible and in as beautiful and youthful a face and body as money will buy.

Sixteen-year-old narrator Callie Woodland is a Starter "in a sea of silver-haired Enders." Spore wars have wiped out nearly a generation of people. Only the elderly and the young were inoculated against the fatal spores. Medical breakthroughs allow people to live to be 200 but cannot halt the aging process. So wealthy Enders pay top dollar to a company called Prime Destinations to "rent" the body of a Starter via a microchip embedded in the Starter donor's brain. Callie and her ailing seven-year-old brother, Tyler, squat in abandoned buildings and scrounge for food. A contract for one session with Prime Destinations will earn Callie enough to buy a home for them. But something goes wrong with Callie's microchip. She resumes her body partway through her rental and discovers that she's part of her renter's plot to take down Prime Destinations--as an assassin.

With exquisite pacing, Price weaves a web of intrigue that involves the exploitation of children and corruption at the highest levels of society. Her themes touch on today's realities, such as an obsession with youth and beauty, and high unemployment coupled with a longer life expectancy. Teens will find a champion in Callie, who strives to be true to her sense of morality while also providing a safe harbor for those she loves. Price concludes her tale with Enders, scheduled for December 2012. Readers will be waiting at the edge of their seats. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

With a hint of magical realism and a Latin influence, The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind tells the story of 16-year-old Sonia Ocampo with an enchanting narrative.

As soon as Sonia is born, the harsh winds slowly destroying her village in Tres Montes stop, causing the villagers to believe the baby is blessed. "She must have been sent to us by God," the old miners proclaim. For years, Sonia listens to the hopes and prayers of neighbors and friends who believe she possesses magical powers. Until one day, a friend dies, despite the prayer of safety begged of her: "Save my boy's life," Señora Clara asks. "You are my only hope."

Knowing that her prayers have no more power than anyone else's ("Her whole life had been built around a silly mountain myth"), Sonia takes a job in the capital. Her father does not want her to leave Tres Montes, nor does he know that Rafael, his only son, also plans to leave the village in search of work. Sonia soon learns that her brother is missing and in possible danger. With the help of those around her, she goes on a journey to not only save Rafael, but also to learn what her life is really about.

Meg Medina (Tía Isa Wants a Car) creates a clear role for each of her characters, and the descriptions of life in Tres Montes immerse readers in the villagers' daily rhythm. Sonia's satisfying story of self-discovery combines friendship, family, love and adventure. A book for those fond of alluring storytelling. --Shanyn Day, blogger at Chick Loves Lit